Show HN: Podlite - a lightweight markup language for organizing knowledge

What's the main advantage over AsciiDoc?

Although it's already on your roadmap, but it definitely needs more complex examples. Fiddled around a bit with links to same-doc references. Got it to work, but took a while.

asystole · a year ago

I'm still upset that Markdown ended up getting all the mindshare. AsciiDoc is so much nicer.

aspyct · a year ago

I'm happy that something at all got all the mindshare. Otherwise we'd still each be using something different.

Markdown is perfectly usable.

everforward · a year ago

AsciiDoc is much nicer, but has the unfortunate flaw of having basically one implementation and it's in Ruby (the JS one is just transpiled, the Java one runs on JRuby, not sure about Go and Haskell).

They don't even have a Python library, which basically guarantees that AsciiDoc won't be taught in colleges.

I like AsciiDoc, but not nearly enough to mess around with installing Ruby and Gems and then having to do the same for anyone else at work that needs to build the docs for whatever reason.

Ruby is basically a non-starter for me in general. Dependency management and interpreter versioning is a pain in the ass for interpreted languages, so I'd rather have as few as possible on my system. I've already got Perl and Python installed by default, I'd rather not add a third.

Ringz · a year ago

I'm still upset that Markdown ended up getting all the mindshare and doesn’t evolve. All the fragmentation through different markdown flavors doesn’t help.

Podlite indeed looks promising, especially with its extensibility and support for Markdown. I agree that if a markup language gets too complex, using raw HTML might be more advantageous. However, I think the strength of Podlite lies in its universality and flexibility, allowing it to adapt to various project requirements.

I'm particularly interested in the extensibility of Podlite. This feature allows the language's functionality to be expanded according to the specific needs of a project, which could be a huge plus in many cases. I look forward to seeing how Podlite evolves.

As for using raw HTML and JavaScript, while they indeed provide powerful querying features, Podlite might be simpler and more intuitive for those who are not familiar with these technologies. I think that's another strength of Podlite.

All in all, I think Podlite is a project worth watching. I'll keep an eye on its progress and look forward to seeing what changes it can bring in the future. Thanks for sharing this project!

simonw · a year ago

It took me a few clicks but here's an example Podlite document for anyone who likes to jump straight into examples: https://github.com/podlite/podlite-specs/blob/main/Specifica...

This introductory blog post from February is useful too: https://podlite.org/2024/2/21/1/introducing-podlite-a-lightw...

burrish · a year ago

just jump in the playground: https://pod6.in/

bachmeier · a year ago

While I think this is worth exploring, at a certain point you end up doing so much that you could just write raw HTML, and then you'd have the advantage of being able to display it directly in the browser and using Javascript's powerful querying features.

zagap · a year ago

Good question!

To meet modern requirements and make documents dynamic, we need a flexible API and integration with contemporary frameworks. Simple HTML just isn't up to the task. Although this was the approach during the early implementation (https://github.com/zag/js-pod6), it turned out to be a dead end.

thank you

kkfx · a year ago

Please, anytime you try to imitate parts of org-mode, consider org-mode, markup and abilities.

exe34 · a year ago

I had all kinds of plans for my knowledge management for over a decade. Then I started using org-roam and now the activation energy to consider anything else is so high that I'm stuck in a local minimum.

okibry · a year ago

What do you mean ?

lyu07282 · a year ago

also if you find yourself inventing a new complex syntax for yet another markup language... consider doing something else instead

k8si · a year ago

Please put concrete examples right at the top of the page you're publicizing!

The specification for the Podlite markup language is written using Podlite markup itself.

https://github.com/podlite/podlite-specs/blob/main/Specifica...

Also online playground is available here: https://pod6.in/

Thanks for your interest in Podlite! with best, Alex

jon_richards · a year ago

That playground is cool. I wonder if there are any 2-way playgrounds where the right side is also editable using a Word / Google Docs style interface (and the changes are reflected in the code-style interface on the left). I've always wanted something like that for teaching non-technical people the basics of Markdown. Bonus points if it's collaborative.

WA · a year ago

chj · a year ago

Isn't it the way perl scripts write their documentation? I don't know what makes it good for personal knowledge systems from reading the introduction

apgwoz · a year ago

Perl's POD, yes. But you're right! The spec authors are Perl folx, and this is clearly derivative. What's kind of interesting is that POD stands for "Plain Old Documentation" and then there's a "lite" version of it... so "lite-r Plain Old Documentation" --- I don't see a clear summary of the differences, though.

ThinkBeat · a year ago

Reading through the source for the specifications was interesitng. There is a lot of good stuff here, but there is so much to learn but I dont see enough benefits to push me to learn it when I already have Latex,Markdown and straight HTML in my toolbox.

I would like to be proven wrong though.

PixelEngineer · a year ago